Students face a "very slim" chance of a graduate-level job this summer according to a poll of 100 of the country's best-known companies which shows that one in six such posts have already been cut.

Most graduate traineeships are already taken and positions in the City alone are down 47%. It is the first widespread acknowledgement from leading employers that they are reducing recruitment.

A Guardian investigation last week revealed widespread fears about the graduate jobs market, with some companies restricting recruitment to just five top universities.

Today's poll was conducted by High Fliers Research, which specialises in the graduate recruitment market. It polled 100 top recruiters including British Airways, HSBC, Marks & Spencer, Morgan Stanley and Rolls-Royce.

This year's intake of new graduates is to be cut by 17%, it reported. The scale-back began last year, suggesting that graduates from the class of 2008 are also still struggling to get work.

Half of employers have now downgraded their graduate recruitment targets for 2009. Cuts have taken place in almost every employment sector, but the situation is worst in the City. Only the public sector is increasing recruitment significantly - by 51% since 2007.

Martin Birchall, managing director of High Fliers, said: "There is understandable panic on campus that this is shaping up to be one of the worst years of the last two decades to be graduating from university ... For those who have yet to begin job hunting, the chances of landing a last-minute place on a graduate programme now seem very slim."